


Ignorance is Not Bliss

by lazarus



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: M/M, The Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarus/pseuds/lazarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Tony decide it’s time to give Billy and Teddy The Talk. Billy and Teddy are mortified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignorance is Not Bliss

**Author's Note:**

> A result from [this](http://-lazarus.tumblr.com/post/10020665161/the-real-reason-steve-has-no-problem-with-teddy)

“I’m sorry… what?” says Billy, a little tongue-tied. There’s a growing sense of immediate dread in the back of his mind that he can’t fully register, but maybe that’s just because his brain had stopped working ten minutes ago.

Beside him, Teddy has frozen in his seat—still with half a biscuit in his mouth and is now turning a very disturbing shade of green which Billy suspected had nothing to do with his Super-Skrull heritage.

“Intercourse, Billy, intercourse,” says Steve, like he’s talking about how to successfully detonate a bomb. His face is serious, looking more composed and determined than he probably ought to be in this situation.

“Intercourse…” says Teddy, when he finally swallows the remains of his cookie and reemerges to the land of the living… like he doesn’t know what that word means anymore. But really, who says intercourse anymore besides his biology teacher and maybe even his mother?

“Yeah you know,” says Tony, waving his hand in the air in a casual gesture, “… _sex_.” His mouth twitches like he’s trying to fight down a smile.

“Tony…” says Steve, sounding reproachful.

Tony shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee. “Hey, I’m just modernizing it for them,” he says.

Steve sighs and turns back to the two of them. “We just want to make sure you guys understand,” he says in a mixture of his ‘mother-hen’ voice and his ‘Captain America’ voice, which, quite frankly, should never ever be merged together regardless of the situation.

Suddenly Billy is wondering if he’s having a nightmare or if he’d somehow suffered some fatal blow to the head and was now experiencing some rather terrifying, borderline traumatic delusions. He’s hoping it’s a hit to the head… it would make more _sense_ if he was hallucinating, but the more Billy kept trying to convince himself that this was so, the more the traitorous part of his mind kept insisting that it wasn’t.

That this was real. That Steve and Tony— _Captain America and Iron Man_ —had called him and Teddy down to HQ _just_ to give them The Talk.

It was one thing to be given a command or a lecture, but it was something else entirely when your mentors sat you down, fed you snacks and drinks and then asked—at point blank—if you and your boyfriend were being ‘safe’.

“Look, if you two are having sex,” says Tony, and Billy dies a little more inside every time he says that word, “then we want to make sure you guys are being responsible.”

“Billy and I aren’t—” says Teddy at once.

“We’re not—we haven’t—” says Billy at the same time, his face probably as bright as the sun now.

They both fall silent, unable to go on from sheer embarrassment and mortification.

“Well, in the event that you two decide to become intimate—” says Steve gently, like that word and that tone would make the situation even less awkward than it already is, “—we want be certain that you two are prepared. Tony?”

Tony takes out a remote from his pocket and points it at the wall adjacent to where they’re sitting and suddenly a simulation appears before them.

“You see,” says Tony, sounding much like Billy’s mother did when she came into his room one night and explained to him where babies came from, complete with charts and pictures, which later gave Billy nightmares for three whole days. Tony sounded just like that, only Billy was certain charts and pictures were the least of his worries knowing how Tony Stark liked to operate. “When two people are attracted to one another…”

And for twenty long and painful minutes, he and Teddy were forced to watch and listen as Tony demonstrated a step-by-step walk-through of how an erection was caused, what hormones were, the functions and practicalities of anal sex and where semen came from.

 _I don’t understand what is happening!_ Billy thinks, reverting from panic and then to horror. What on earth had he and Teddy done to deserve this? They’ve fought bad guys, did their homework, ate their veggies and listened to his parents—they had even helped little old ladies across the street. If that did not solidify that Billy and Teddy were good people he did not know what will. As far as he was concerned, this was just pure unnecessary torture.

Perhaps he did something in another life to piss someone off. Maybe this was retribution for all the songs and movies he’d downloaded illegally off the internet and then some.

By the time it’s over, Billy has lost all willpower to live and Teddy looks as though he’s on the verge of a major mental meltdown.

“Any questions?” says Tony cheerfully. When he receives none, he shuts off the simulation and returns to his seat.

Steve looks rather satisfied and gives Tony a smile. And maybe the presentation screwed more with Billy’s mind than he thought, but he could have sworn there was something oddly… intimate and warm about it, like he and Tony were sharing some close secret that no one else was supposed to know, and Billy was an unknowing intruder being privy to it.

“Thanks,” says Steve in a soft tone that’s meant for Tony’s ears only.

Tony shrugs. “It was nothing,” he says, but gives Steve a smile of his own, and honestly, Billy’s never seen Tony smile like that for anybody. It’s strange; it’s the kind of open honesty he would not expect Tony Stark capable of even making, never mind willingly. “You owe me one, you know that right?”

Steve’s his eyes are a mixture of affection and something else. Something dark and filled with heat. “I know,” he says, his voice coming off deeper than normal.

Tony meets his eyes. “Good,” he says, sounding just as serious and the smile has turn into a full-blown leer, and Billy’s seen that grin on too many tabloids to mistaken what it implies.

Oh god, Billy thinks because now it’s just too obvious. _Steve and Tony? Cap and Iron Man are_ —really?? Billy doesn’t know what to do with this bit of discovery any more than he does with whether or not this new insight of his is a good thing or a bad thing.

He decides it’s definitely a _bad_ thing when Steve finally turns back to him and Teddy and pulls out a banana from the fruit bowl. It becomes all too obvious where the next conversation is headed.

“Now, kids, this is how you put on a condom…”

No amount of magic or therapy was _ever_ going to make Billy forget this talk.


End file.
